A voice to call her own

8:00am Thursday 5th June 2008

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Last year Clare Teal won Jazz Vocalist Of The Year at the British Jazz Awards. Miriam Craig talks to the singer ahead of her gig at The Radlett Centre

Clare Teal, 35, learnt to sing from the best teachers you can get.

In the attic of her home in a tiny village near Skipton, in Yorkshire, she started out as a real-life Little Voice, mimicking the greats of the jazz era in the privacy of her bedroom.

Teal would spend hours listening to Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and Billie Holiday on her grandmother's collection of 78s.

She says: "I couldn't get enough of it. I started building up a collection of records and spent all my pocket money on them. When I was eight or nine, I heard Ella Fitzgerald for the first time and thought that was the best thing I had ever heard, and got more into the jazz side of it."

It was then, Teal says, that she got her voice training, rather than while studying music at university. She says: "For about ten years I listened and imitated those singers. I really pushed myself to perfect these different styles. I never thought I'd sing professionally, and nobody knew I was doing this. But by the time I got to university and finally did start singing in public, it felt very natural."

It took Teal longer, however, to train herself out of the habit of mimicking the famous voices she admired. After graduating, she even came second in a national competition to find the country's best Billie Holiday soundalike.

"It was only when I was about 27 that I felt I could reliably open my mouth and know it would be me singing, rather than a mixture of other people," she says.

Teal's first attempt at pursuing jazz singing as a career was short-lived, and she instead started working for newspapers selling advertising.

But when a pianist she had met years earlier called, needing a singer to perform alongside him for one night only, she jumped at the opportunity, and continued doing gigs and started to make a name for herself.

In 2001, she signed her first deal, with independent label Candid, for which she wrote and recorded three albums - though she was still working full-time while making the first two.

"I decided to go for broke, and I was very lucky to be in the right place at the right time when jazz suddenly became fashionable again."

She has since moved from Candid to Sony Jazz - landing what, at the time, was the biggest recording contract ever awarded to a British jazz artist - and from there to Universal imprint W14 Music.

Teal's latest album, Get Happy, has a nostalgic, Americana sound, with classic jazz standards like Cheek to Cheek and Begin the Beguine, alongside more recent favourites such as Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.

It may have taken her a while to get where she is, but Teal feels she still has plenty of time to show the world what she can do: "I think it happened a great way for me because I was a bit older, so I had a lot clearer idea of what I wanted out of it.

"It's been a lovely, gradual rise. The great thing about jazz is you can carry on singing until you're 110 years old. I plan on doing that."

Teal will perform at The Radlett Centre, in Aldenham Avenue, Radlett, on Wednesday at 8pm. Tickets cost £16 (concessions £15) and are available from the box office on 01923 859291.